Chondroitin sulfate-functionalized 3D hierarchical flower-type mesoporous silica with a superior capacity for...

Novel flower-type and three-dimensional porous nanoparticles are prepared for the isolation of low density lipoprotein (LDL). The amino-terminated dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (A-DMSNs) show highly accessible central-radial pore (0.655 cm³ g^-1) and surface area (362.263 m² g^-1), which play an important role in the superior adsorption capacity of 816.7 μg mg^-1. The A-DMSNs is anchored with chondroitin sulfate (CS), shortly termed as ADC, for ensuring the selectivity of the adsorption. The adsorbed LDL is thereafter readily recovered at pH 9.0 by using 4 mmol L^-1 Britton-Robinson buffer as stripping reagent, providing a recovery of 79.1%. ADC nanoparticles are further applied as sorbent for the selective isolation of LDL from simulated serum of hypercholesterolemia patient. High-purity LDL is achieved as demonstrated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) assays.